The Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) announced today, Sunday, that the number of transfers has increased to 400 transfers, while clarifying the procedures for financial transfers and combating money laundering.
The bank's media advisor, Aqil Al-Shuwaili, said in a press statement, "After the recent decisions taken by the bank's management, in accordance with the directives of the Prime Minister, to open a deposit center, additional branches were opened and working hours were extended from 7 am to 3 pm," noting that "these decisions contributed significantly to reducing the existing congestion."
He added, "The percentage of transfers increased from 250 to more than 400 various transfers daily within the Iraqi Trade Bank in all branches and is subject to increase," indicating that "we have branches still under construction that will be opened soon and there are employees with experience, and work will be done to increase their numbers."
For her part, the head of the remittances department at the Trade Bank of Iraq, Ruqayyah Abdul Rahman, confirmed that “the bank’s role is important and effective in determining remittances through the Central Bank’s platform based on the Prime Minister’s directives,” adding that “daily the bank receives requests to implement between 400 and 500 remittances, and remittances that do not meet the requirements of the documents are rejected, because the remittance goes through several steps until it reaches the final stage of implementation in the remittances department, or the invoice is missing or copies of the identities or documents belonging to the customer himself.”
She added: “Companies are required to have an account at the Trade Bank (TBI) and to submit invoices with new dates, address and information of the person or company to which the transfer is made and the beneficiary of the final amount. It must be between the transfer applicant and the final beneficiary, in addition to other documents from the identity and papers of the company itself, certified and complete.”
She pointed out that "the problem occurs when the merchant wants the transfer quickly, and it goes through several procedures until it reaches the final stage, and its papers may be incomplete or the branch may upload it and it stops at a certain point in the system, and this causes the transfer to be delayed, so we emphasize to customers to complete the papers of invoices and information before executing the transfer, and sometimes the correspondent bank requests information from the depositor of the amounts so that there is correspondence between us and him until he is convinced, and most of those who refuse have a lack of documents and the conditions are not met for the transfer."
“When the transfers are submitted to the branch, they enter the Anti-Money Laundering Department, are audited, and are submitted to the second auditing company, which takes its time. When it returns to us, it has approval, and is audited again to go to the branch to take the necessary action. After that, it is submitted to the Remittances Department, and the transfer is executed within 5 to 7 days,” she noted, noting that “the Trade Bank of Iraq is solid and has a wide network of correspondents, which has made customers come to the bank through the Central Bank platform to benefit from the exchange rate approved by the Central Bank, and the senior management is working to establish new branches that attract good cadres and increase the percentage of work and transfers.”
In this regard, Dina Ahmed Farhan, Head of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Reporting Department, explained that “the most important thing in a transfer is the customer. When he writes a transfer for a certain amount from the requesting company, along with all the papers and the amount, these lists are submitted with the request to the Central Bank platform for approval, and the requirements of the auditing company and the requirements of the international company sending the transfer are attached to them, in addition to the identities and passports of the shareholders, institutions, negotiating manager and agent.”
She added: “The account opening form contains family information, name, residence, telephone number, monthly expectations, amount of transactions in the account, and business information to let the customer know what he is doing, to know if their names are present, to know if they are included in local and international ban lists and the bank’s list.”
She explained, "There are certain percentages to know if the project can be managed first, and the priorities are audited and reviewed to go to the platform and an approval is given that is converted into Excel and then goes to (K2), a global auditing company in America to audit even the beneficiary to whom the company's information, papers, email, phone number and address are sent. Sometimes this company cancels many requests because they are not convincing companies. They have special websites and standards that many companies are audited by, and approximately 20 companies have been banned from dealing with them in China. We have many companies and merchants whose papers are checked before entering the platform."